A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/746805
new SFO tower. Like any major program, this does not mean th e work stops. The break allowed for the TAMR Program Office full deployment team to meet with NATCA's full deployment team for three days in Washington, D . C. The team used this opportunity to review lessons learned from the previous year, view what is upcoming in 2017, accomplish strategic planning, and tackle issues related to the aging ASR8 radar systems still deployed throughout the NAS. During the week of October 24 - 28, a NATCA team met at RFD to test the Common Terminal Digitizer (CTD). This is the second look a t the CTD; the first was on non - operational radar at the Tech Center in ACY. During the latest test, the configuration of the system was a digitized ASR8 via the CTD side - by - side with the same ASR8 but on an analog feed into the RFD ARTS IIE. RFD continued using the ASR8 during this real - world test. The results were mixed at best. While the test team did see significant improvements in primary radar returns and tracking, the system displayed significant issues with weather. More troubling was cross channel feedback that caused the off - line channel to affect the operational display. The CTD does have an upside; the test team observed that the CTD was able to track a target where the legacy equipment could not. However, the timeline required to produce a qual ity product is placing immense pressure on the TAMR3 SEG2 waterfall. If the CTD cannot be fielded in time to support the remaining analog ASR8s then TAMR will not be capable of completing the TAMR waterfall. If this does come to fruition , the NAS will be l eft with nine ARTS IIE facilities. TIME BASED FLOW MANAGEMENT (TBFM): Eric Owens (I90) is the Article 114 Representative for TBFM. His report to the membership is below. The National TBFM Ops Team was busy during the month of October with several schedule d activities. The week of October 10, we continued Integrated Departure and Arrival Capability (IDAC) training at ZOB, DTW, BUF, ROC, and CLE. All the facilities except for CLE were using IDAC after the second week of training. We returned to CLE to com plete their IDAC training the week of October 24. However, prior to using IDAC , the controllers wanted the system relocated. Fortunately, while we were at the facility conducting the training, CLE's Tech Ops moved the IDAC system to a more desirable locat ion for the controllers. As a result, the controllers are now using the IDAC system. We are also working with DTW and PIT to get their IDAC workstation moved to a better location for the operation. The week of October 10 , the National TBFM Ops Team had a team meeting in Washington, D . C. The team will have a minimum of two team meetings per calendar year. During the team meeting , we discussed ways to better assist facilities with timely information regarding TBFM software updates and issues identified in site reports. We are also discussing the idea of developing a TBFM newsletter. The week of October 17 , we had members of the team at multiple events. I was at Denver TRACON for a TSAS Ops Meeting and facility briefing. On Tuesday, the TSAS Ops Gr oup met to continue discussions about requirements and TRACON airspace for TSAS use. On Wednesday, we conducted a TSAS briefing for ZDV and D01. We will be returning to brief Denver Tower. After the briefing, I went to D . C . to attend a 3T meeting at MITRE. I also had NATCA SMEs Matt Gammon at ZAB and Kevin Bell at ZDV for a TBFM 4.6 Discovery Site. During the discovery effort , it was identified that the Integrated Departure Routes (IDR) were causing some scheduling issues. As a result, I contacted